Category Flowers/Gardening
The comeback artist
The last thing I did in London before leaving my keys in the flat and catching an Uber to the airport was to pull my shamrock out of the dirt it was planted in, chop off all the leaves, and hide the roots wrapped in wet cloths in my luggage. I wasn’t sure if it […]
Chelsea Flower Show
The thing I love the absolute most about the UK is the country’s deep cultural fondness for gardening. I see it everywhere I go — in the vines twining up the front stoops of Georgian row houses in the city, the charming villages in the country, the Facebook feeds of my English friends, and the […]
“The ‘breast of the nymph in the brake’ astounds no one”
Ever vigilant in keeping my gardening standards at the cutting edge of taste, Lady took to heart Muriel Stuart’s sage advice that gnomes and pheasants are out . . . . . . but stone nymphs are in . . . . . . with the happy result that my window boxes are now graced […]
Window boxes, autumn edition
Back at the beginning of the summer I wrote about planting some flower boxes outside my kitchen window. They were full of pink geraniums, yellow snapdragons, and a mass of trailing petunias. I never followed up with a “here’s how they turned out” post because, well, they never quite lived up to my hopes. This […]
I’m in Wales!
After a nearly sleepless night in sweltering London, we left early for a weekend road trip to Wales. By early afternoon we were in the green, hilly, blessedly cool Welsh countryside where all the road signs have more Ys, Ws, Ls, and Ds than you ever thought possible. First stop: Powis castle and gardens. It’s […]
The gardens at Great Dixter
About eight miles down the road from Sissinghurst lies another significant English garden. Designed in the early 20th Century around a Tudor mansion, this garden, too, has been a repeat player in the gardening books I’ve been reading. So after prying myself out of the Sissinghurst rose garden, I set out to find Great Dixter. […]
Sissinghurst castle garden
Saturday was the last day of June! Since June is peak garden month in England, and the weather was forecast was perfect, I rented a car and set out to see a couple of my top bucket-list gardens. First stop? Sissinghurst castle garden in Kent (about 2 hours southeast of London). There is no “castle” […]
Wait a sec, there was more to Copenhagen
I just realized I never wrote about the rest of my time in Copenhagen! Let’s see what I can remember… First, the towers were weird. Well, not “weird”, but definitely different from what I’m used to seeing in France and the UK — more Eastern European feeling. Gave the town a more exotic feel than […]
Back to Kew
A couple of years ago, when I was in London on a work trip — before I ever thought I would live here — I took the train out to Richmond to see Kew Gardens, one of the major botanic centers of the world. I remember being impressed (mostly by the size of the water […]
Midsummer garden weekend
This morning I skipped regular church services for a slightly more secular outing — though the first stop was actually a Medieval church that happened to be next door to the Archbishop of Canterbury’s palace. The church is where the famous 17th Century gardeners John Tradescant Sr and Jr are buried, and is now the […]
A More Gentlemanlike Manner 